Yeah, a more accurate measurement would be "baseline + X" - you don't really need to go above the average household size, but you can fit people in way denser than 25m^2 (270 sq ft) if they share common areas. The average dorm room is 230 sq ft (with a roommate!) but the dorm provides common areas and other amenities.

Another thing to consider when comparing countries is what is considered "living space" and what is not - some areas have large porches that are not considered "living space" even though they serve similar functions to what a living room might in other parts of the world.

It depends on how you measure those 25m^2; I lived in a studio in Copenhagen for a while and my 25m^2 included the common areas / roof garden etc. Private space was around 16-20m^2, and I am being generous here.

Yeah, so many things go into it that it's hard to just compare numbers, you really have to live it to compare.

Agree - I moved from 40m2 alone to 60m2 with my wife, and the experience is much better. We still have one sink, one toilet, one bathtub, one washing machine. Her space takes up maybe 10m2. The free walking-around space probably went from 5m2 to 25m2.

> A family with two young kids living in 100m^2 is pretty spacious.

depends on your perspective, I guess! that sounds horribly cramped to me.

It's not about perspective. Both average to 25m2 per person, but they are vastly, unambiguously different.

In a 100m2 home: 3x15m2 bedrooms, 25m2 living room, 10m2 kitchen and you still got 20m2 left.

It's no comparison to a single 25m2 apartment where all these functions have to fit.

Well, to a point. If I live alone in a big city I don't necessarily need a kitchen at all. However, cooking scales more efficiently than eating out so I'll definitely want one for my family.

In that sense, I guess a 100cm2 apartment is "pretty spacious" compared to a 25cm2 one. My point was that a family of four living in a 100m2 apartment is going to feel cramped.

We're a family of 5 living in 104m^2 and it doesn't feel cramped at all. Granted, we don't have a big "master bedroom" and we don't have an office or a laundry room. We also have to keep the place tidy, because it does feel cramped when there's a mess.

But it really depends on expectations. When people who live in the city visit us, they say "woah, that's a big apartment". When people who live on the countryside visit us, they say "how can you live in this tiny space".

My comment really was about how talking about "area per person" is not a good metric, because how spacious an apartment feels does not scale linearly with household size.

> A single person living in a 25m^2 appartment would be quite cramped. > A family with two young kids living in 100m^2 is pretty spacious.

I would argue very much the opposite!

  - 1 person in 25m² (270 ft²) is comfortable enough in a city, and if your hobbies are small
  - 4 people in 100m² (1076 ft²) can definitely be cramped

The 4 person example has a lot more usable space though, since you're sharing common space. You're not adding 3 more kitchens. Or 3 more laundry areas. Or 3 more bathrooms (maybe 1). Or 3 more living rooms.

The 270 ft² space might have 100 ft² usable area, but the 1076 ft² could have 700 ft² usable.

This make sense numerically -- but having lived in both, I'll argue that that is not the determining measure.

It seems to depend on how common the common space, and the people occupying it, are.

Flatmates (and offspring) can have a low quotient of space utilization compatibility.

There's a lot of space needed in an apartment for "overhead" stuff: kitchen sink/counter, refrigerator, toilet, tub/shower, powder room sink, washing machine, entryway, etc. Going from a tiny 1DK to a massive 3LDK doesn't change the overhead requirements much; those extra 75 m^2 are mostly usable space.